Requirements.

REAL ID* represents a particularly interesting facet of American identification paranoia and obsession. Here is a program created with the stated purpose of centralizing and modernizing driver's licenses, to avoid some of the many pitfalls that can occur in a system with 50 (or more) different standards of issuance and creation, yet that somehow managed to incur such a fierce opposition from the populace and many politicians that it is likely now limping towards obsolescence (or even non-existence) before its implementation.

The most confusing part of all this, ultimately, is that REAL ID is basically no scarier than the current driver's license system already in place ... but neither is it much more useful. The new requirements for obtaining such a new license read very much like the requirements for obtaining one of the old licenses; proof of birth, residence, a photograph, and a person's Social Security number**, etc. In terms of its application, there is already a long-standing federal database linking together aggregate information on driver's licenses from all the states, so REAL ID in that sense is nothing new. What is new is the idea that this information might actually be useful if it can be easily accessed and analyzed.

Unfortunately for the REAL ID Act, it completely fails to accomplish much of the altruistic potential of such data collection, while feeding as always into strong privacy advocates' eloquent and persuasive fears of surveillance. What is this potential? To list merely a few of the dozens discussed in the author's master's thesis: instant access to life-saving medical records, the ability to locate individuals behind on child support payments (an estimated $5 billion is currently outstanding in this avenue alone), further confounding of the ability of any felonious individuals to hide from justice, an accurate and transparently accountable "watch list" system, expedited government services from the airport security screen to the line at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Why does it fail to do these things? All the REAL ID Act does, essentially, is standardize the format of data collection for all licenses, without producing a viable system to work with the data collected therein, or doing anything about the obvious fact that forged identity documents will always exist. The latter could be accomplished relatively "simply," but it would also require fairly extensive centralized records on every American.

In the sense that REAL ID accomplishes comparatively little, it is almost less than useless; it gives credence to privacy advocates' claims of government intrusion without cause. Indeed, there are quite obvious downsides to such a system. No matter where one stands in the continuum of privacy and surveillance, surely it is worth discussing the merit of the points being made by those on both ends. What else might the government do with such a system? Considering that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had precious little difficulty maintaining close surveillance on tens of thousands of peaceful non-criminal Americans in times of peace, it is hard to imagine what the same agency might be doing with today's near-infinitely more advanced technology and "mandate" to safeguard the country in a time of war. Not to mention the fact that technology is a genie that will never go back in its bottle; the technology thus utilized for one purpose will inevitably give rise to more advanced technology for that purpose, which in turn will likely end up with applications heretofore unforeseen (merely imagine the history of [and uses for] a camera for a relevant example).

It seems somewhat likely that this particular abortive attempt at making the driver's license into something continually less relevant to its original purpose*** will serve merely as a trial run for whatever system is put into place seemingly overnight the next time America enters a period of horrific crisis and terror. Ultimately, this is the best evidence for being concerned over REAL ID.

*REAL ID, no matter what you read, is an acronym. It means ... well, something.
**The Social Security number deserves a post or five of its own.
***Driver's licenses were not even required nationwide until the 1950s, and were not created because of concern over driving skills.